Stand-Off
As they crossed the rotunda, he watched as a young staffer pulled a dolly cart stacked high with boxes of pizza toward the Speaker's office. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Secretary's head turn out of interest— food tended to stop her in her tracks. When she slowed to a stop, he stopped walking too.
"I need to use the ladies' room." Once the cart disappeared through a doorway, Elizabeth turned and handed him her briefcase. She kept the strap of her purse clutched in her left hand. "Go on ahead without me," she told him.
"Yes, Ma'am."
Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, he continued his way through the Capitol Building. Maybe she would use the restroom, but even after she'd devoured the scallop and shrimp risotto he'd picked up from Floriana, he knew that she wouldn't be able to resist sneaking a slice or two of pizza.
When he turned a corner, Blake spotted a familiar face.
"Hey Jen," he said with a smile.
Hearing the call of her name, the young woman's head popped up from her phone. Like usual, she returned his smile with one of her own.
"If you're here I take it your boss is too."
With a nod, he confirmed, "Yes, she's in the restroom."
Still halfway down the hallway, Jen slowed her pace, but she didn't stop walking. "I'll be sure to keep Cindy away then." Unlike the two of them, their bosses didn't get along. As they crossed paths in the hall, Jen said, "I would love to stick around and chat…" She waved her phone at her side. "But…"
"Yeah, go." He glanced down at his watch. The position of its hands told him that it was 9:57. "I'm about to be late to a meeting here myself."
"Stay cool!" She joked.
The joke would be funny if he hadn't already been sweating through the sleeves of his dress shirt.
With the end-of-July heat, he wished that they would be working in the Rayburn House Office Building tonight, but the man the Secretary was meeting had taken up in a conference room near the House Chamber. Apparently, Jeff Rhodes was too good for the six-minute walk to the Speaker's office. Luckily, they weren't headed to the Cannon Building with its scarcity of elevators.
When he entered the conference room, his head was down.
"Elizabeth will just be a minute." Looking up, he saw a woman perched on top of the table in front of Jeff's chair. A blush quickly spread across his cheeks. He checked the time as an excuse to divert his eyes. "Am I interrupting?" Blake asked.
Staring at the woman, he noticed stilettos, a tight skirt that hugged at the thighs, and in between were long tan and toned legs. One was crossed over the other, leaving the point of a high heel an inch away from Jeff's left knee. He followed the legs up to the woman's face and—
"Meredith?"
His sister chuckled as she slowly stood from the table. Instead of explaining herself, let alone greeting him, she spoke to Jeff. "You could have told me that your meeting is with my brother," she said.
"My meeting isn't with your brother." Jeff leaned back in his chair, interlocking his fingers behind his head. "It's with your brother's boss."
"Same difference."
Once she finally decided to cross the room, directing her attention toward him, he asked, "What are you doing here?"
"You know I hate New York in the summertime." She pressed a polite kiss to his right cheek as they shared a quick embrace— a classic Moran mannerism. "There are too many tourists."
"You hate New York in general," he said. "There are too many liberals."
"It's not any better here," Jeff muttered.
After setting Elizabeth's briefcase on the table, he asked, "Seriously, what are you doing here?"
Like the rest of his family, she was supposed to be on Gull Island. Usually, she spent the entire month of July there, sipping martinis, sailing with their grandfather, and stressing over her children wearing life jackets. Blake will be headed there himself on Saturday.
"If you must know, I wanted an opinion on a legal situation."
"That requires a phone call to an in-house lawyer, not a plane ride to chat with the minority leader of the House." He pointed his finger across the room toward Jeff's chair. "Who, by the way, is a politician, not a lawyer."
"Hey, I attended Harvard Law like the rest of them at Moran Corp.," Jeff told him.
Almost as if she could sense the tension between the boys, Meredith cleared her throat and grabbed her bag from a chair.
"I should be going."
Standing at the end of the table, fingertips pressing into the wood, Blake watched as Jeff set the glass he had clutched in his left hand on top of a file before he stood and hugged his sister.
"Dinner was fun," Jeff whispered as he pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. "I always have a great time with you."
Always the skeptic, Blake arched his left brow— they'd gone out to dinner together?
"Tomorrow?" Meredith asked after pulling away.
With a wink, Jeff said, "Count on it."
"Tomorrow?" Blake questioned.
"We're playing tennis."
Bag in hand, his sister headed for the door.
Taking his chair again, Jeff asked, "So, should we get to it?"
"Elizabeth is—"
"I'm right here," she said as she stepped into the room. Slowly, she walked toward the main table, balancing a paper plate with a slice of greasy pizza in each hand. "I grabbed you both a piece."
Although he assumed that she'd had a slice of her own, he knew that she would eat his too.
"Excuse me for a minute, Ma'am."
As he stepped out into the hall, Blake realized that the Secretary hadn't been carrying her purse. With a sigh, he accepted that he would have to retrace her steps through the building. First, he needed to find his sister.
"Meredith!"
Luckily, he caught her at the end of the hallway.
"Are you sleeping with him?"
Jumping to conclusions, he imagined them back and forth from New York, sneaking into each other's beds.
"Of course, not."
Her tone was convincing, but he knew that Meredith was a good liar.
"We were talking business, Blake." Just as she had when they were younger, she stared into his soul. "It's only been a few years. Don't tell me you've already forgotten that we're government contractors."
Shaking his head, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Forget it," Blake mumbled under his breath.
"You did," she reminded, referring to his decision to move away from his family's company.
When she turned on her heel, he asked, "Were you going to tell me that you were in town?"
His town.
With a quick glance over her left shoulder, she said, "I was thinking about it."
"Drinks later?"
Halfway down the hall, Meredith paused. Turning back, she told him, "I'm staying at the Hay-Adams."
"I'll see you once I finish up here."